Let no good deed go unpunished. 
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Thread of Lost Tales: Bismarck of Japan
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Update time!
 Mack and I traded the city of Katadin back and forth before he took peace. I was a bit surprised by that, I had resigned myself to either razing the city or letting him have it, but decided to be stubborn for one turn and retake. Even if he recaptured and we then peaced out, I think there's some benefit in making it look like the city was important to me. Turns out looking stubborn works though.  I couldn't really justify leaving the troops over there to hold the city when Dreylin looks about to collapse. Seems mack has a similar idea because scouting him now that he's taken peace, he's evacuated a significant proportion of his forces somewhere. Of course he could be finishing off Tsargon but Tsargon's remaining cities look a lot tougher to chew on than Dreylin's IMO. I'm trying to land about 40 units on Dreylin's island simultaneously in a couple of turns and see what I can take. For the moment scooter is ignoring it, Dreylin appears to have left the garrisons mostly in place but sent his stack back to the mainland. I'd like to take the 3 cities on my coast at least. There are also some easy mainland cities to take, but maybe they're not easy to hold, I'd certainly prefer more of the island.  Scooter surprisingly teched Scientific Method recently. I wonder whether he realised he obsoleted 20 AP monasteries there. Maybe he really wants to get SP and to deny the Kremlin to Mack, but he could have gone Lib first. Most likely he didn't know he got so much benefit from the AP due to subbing. In any case, I'm very happy to see him going to any of the 3 options after Sci Meth. Only airships are mildly worrying. I just picked up Mil Science, because I realised I don't have any hitters I want to build for my cannons. Next I think I'll go Paper -> PP -> RP -> Steam Power -> Railroad. First 3 have pretty much full KTBs and then Steam and RR are great. Hopefully I'll roll a scientist somewhere to bulb Education. After that I can head towards Corporation for Mining Inc, I reckon that's about 30t teching. There's a minor quibble on whether I want to change civics at the end of my golden age but I think I'll stick to Rep/Vassalage/Caste/Merc/FR. Bureau is getting too expensive with my empire, Nationhood is the cheapest option but it's probably worth ~40gpt to get an extra promo across the board. I see lots of good fighting opportunities in the next 50t. I have a pretty hammer heavy economy so hopefully the drafting is unneccessary(and requires me to get Rifling). If I have a 4th GA, Nationhood might be the best option then as liquidating pop is better at the end of the game. Anyway, Vassalage seems to suit Japan.
Beeline shale plants! It's the only way.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
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Hey, shale plants don't depend on coal, I never realised that. A year ago I might have thought that was a pointless little bonus.
 *Mack picked up Sci Meth too and also obsoleted his Monasteries, I'm not quite sure how many GJ built yet. He's almost certainly going for the Kremlin. I wonder if he has the GPs incoming for another golden age(+revolt to US) then. *Scooter researched Lib and revolted to FS/FR. Hopefully a race? *Declared on Dreylin and landed on his island. Unfortunately Dreylin's been beefing up the defences and not shipping stuff back to the mainland. Fortunately scooter has no troops on the island. I should be able to take 4 cities, not sure about the 2 on scooter's coast.
CR cannons are lovely.
 I lost 2 cannons killing about 15 troops this turn, though Juicer was the only city I took.  Rolled an artist here which is a bit unfortunate. Do I go for a 4th golden age now? I was sort of hoping to keep bulbing stuff from here out. I guess I save it for the moment, maybe I find a good artist bomb opportunity. In the case that I'm splitting land with one of the other two that's a pretty powerful move. Otherwise GA eventually. I get another high scientist shot in 5t which can hopefully bulb Education. I'm more worried about mack right now than scooter. Scooter's economy is pretty similar to mine but mack is making about 500gpt more, while I make about 250hpt more. Have to see what he does with his tech. I still have good buildings available to go in my queues, so the hammers are doing good work for me at the moment. I probably should think about invading someone else after Dreylin though. Scooter's advantage is in his massive army so I wonder if he will attack someone else after Dreylin. I got a GG from the Dreylin fighting and I think I'll settle him in my HE city. That could build 11xp Grenadiers. With West Point and the Pentagon it will hit 17xp, which is probably the best I can hope for. I think I have a pretty good shot at the Pentagon because I'm the only one with a good Ironworks set up, though I'll be pretty late to the tech. 3 more turns to finish the IW and I add an extra 60hpt.
March 4th, 2016, 08:50
(This post was last modified: March 4th, 2016, 08:51 by The Black Sword.)
IIRC I offered 20g for gems to Jowy this turn, which is probably what his tech thread post was about. For after the game Jowy, it was a real offer. I needed the gems for one turn in some cities, next turn my WW from Tsargon would disappear. 20g seemed a reasonable value for this(with some value for myself of course). Meanwhile his spare resource is pretty useless to him due to the mirrored nature of the map. I offered a lump sum rather than gpt to emphasise the temporary nature. I didn't see the harm in offering ... but apparently I've managed to annoy him.
Here's the island situation:
 I took Hob this turn. Hopefully Grill will fall next turn. Dreylin has concentrated most of his island defense on this city, throwing cats at my units each turn and generally exhausting my hitters with sheer numbers. With Hob fallen though I could load a bunch of units on the boats:  There's another 2 Grens in range and the chariot in my stack is a GG healer. I'm pretty sure my cannons can wreck his stack enough that even all these injured/naval hitters can clean them up. Meanwhile I'll drop another stack of 7ish cannons on Bread Machine. My hitters will mostly stay in the boats so they can attack again the turn after(and most of the Hob units can promo-heal). Hopefully that will finish this quickly. I guess I'll probably war-peace scooter next turn. Seems the safest thing to do while we get the culture up. I've been considering attacking Jowy next. I suspect his defenses are mostly concentrated on his islands and his mainland is lightly defended. I'm sending a spy over to consider the viability of the plan.
Not sure on the Jowy attack anymore, I thought he wasn't in slavery but it turns out he's in Nationhood instead. Borsche is another option, he's in Caste/Bureau. But he has city visibility on me. On the other hand his turns are pretty short, still might manage to take him by surprise. Right now, I'm leaning toward no invasion before Mining Inc. I still have plenty of good buildings to put up until then, I won't be wasting my hammers. City count will be roughly; 38 for me, 31 for scooter, 28(+2 to plant) for mack. No great pressure to change things.
Once I hit Mining Inc though, I can immediately tech Assembly Line, so I can't really go full military until after Assembly plants, 30t from now. I guess that could work, if we get Mining Inc+Shale Plants we'll massively out hammer everyone. If there is going to be a peaceful period, maybe I can take the opportunity to finally change the ownership of Benhime? For the moment, all my military goes toward Dreylin's island until we get culture up anyway. I'm keeping my cannons out of range of scooters cities to try signal peaceful intentions. They'll be in range of any force that hits mine of course. I got my GS btw, but he bulbs Sci-Meth now and not Education since I researched PP. Whoops.  Well, he's on ice for a while.
(March 5th, 2016, 05:54)The Black Sword Wrote: Hopefully Grill will fall next turn. Dreylin has concentrated most of his island defense on this city, throwing cats at my units each turn and generally exhausting my hitters with sheer numbers. A lot of the reason for that was because you chose not to threaten Bread Machine initially and Grill looked like where I could mount the most effective counter-attack. Also since scooter was tied up on the mainland and hadn't landed anything here yet, you got the Cats. I hadn't realised that you'd lost your own Gems so early, so I was pretty upset about losing mine to Dor-Lomin ... especially since you couldn't use them yourself! Also, I was quite surprised that you lent me the Iron even for the few turns you did; I guess I felt a little safer because of it, but my general lack of boats meant I couldn't have moved much back to the mainland anyway.
I didn't think the iron could help you defend much against me, you don't need it for muskets, I thought frigates would mostly be focused on scooter. Plus I sort of hoped you'd lose some hammers in the queue when I cancelled.
 Sorry about those gems, I didn't expect Dor-Lomin to be able to hold them but I spammed way too many wonders in that city. |
